Rural US hospitals are losing the fight against ransomware due to limited resources compared to bigger organizations.
According to Cyberscoop, witnesses testified in a recent Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee meeting that smaller hospitals are struggling to combat ransomware attacks. In most cases, while there is plenty of information available to help organizations, the issue stems from a lack of resources, including qualified cybersecurity personnel.
“We also saw cybercriminals shift their focus to small and rural hospitals with this group lagging behind in strengthening their defenses,” said Kate Pierce, senior virtual information security officer at cybersecurity firm Fortified Health Security. “Our rural hospitals are facing unprecedented budget constraints with up to 30% or more in the red, with the public health emergency scheduled to end in May.”
Unfortunately, the issue is only going to get worse as bad actors exploit small hospitals’ vulnerability. Some are even stepping up the pressure on smaller hospitals specifically, posting patient information — including nude examination photos — online in an effort to force hospitals to pay up.
“In recent years, increasingly sophisticated cyberattacks in the healthcare and public health sectors posed alarming threats to people in Michigan, as well as across the country,” said Committee Chairman Gary Peters, D-Mich.
Laid-off Google employees have repeatedly asked Google and CEO Sundar Pichai to honor previously approved medical leave.
Google did what was once considered unthinkable for the company, laying off thousands of workers for the first time in its history. At the time, Google promised 16 weeks of severance pay plus an additional two weeks for every year an employee worked at the company.
Unfortunately, for some workers, that still comes out to less time than they were previously promised for medical leave, parental leave, or caregiver’s leave. In early 2022, Google increased the length of various leaves, with parental leave lasting up to 24 months. At the time, Chief People Officer Fiona Cicconi said the company wanted employees to “spend more time with their new baby, look after a sick loved one or take care of their own wellbeing,” according to CNBC.
Now, faced with losing some of that time they were previously promised, more than 100 employees have formed the “Laid off on Leave” group. The group has already sent three letters to Google executives, including Pichai, asking them to honor their previous promise.
In the meantime, the layoffs are causing a significant amount of hardship and inconvenience, including individuals losing access to their health care via Google’s on-site One Medical facility the moment the layoffs were announced.
Still others found out about the reduced leave they’re now facing right when they needed it most.
“Exactly a week after receiving the text and sharing the exciting news that my maternity leave was approved, I got the already widely talked-about email letting me know that I was among the 12k terminated,” a Google program manager wrote on LinkedIn. “Easy target? Maybe.”
“On 1/20/23 at 7:05 am while in the hospital bed holding my hours-old newborn I learned that I was part of the #thegolden12K of Googlers who had been laid off,” Kate Howells wrote on LinkedIn. “I was a Googler for 9.5 years.”
When contacted by CNBC, a Google spokesperson simply pointed to the original layoff announcement.
“As we shared with impacted employees, we benchmarked this package to ensure the care we’re providing compares favorably with other companies, including for Googlers on leave,” the spokesperson said.
Needless to say, the company’s actions are not going over well with Googlers and fly in the face of the image the company has maintained for years, in terms of how it treats its employees.
“When Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced layoffs, he mentioned the company’s commitment to AI three times, but never once mentioned Google’s commitment to accessibility,” the group wrote in an email to CNBC. “This matters deeply because accessibility is part of the company’s actual mission. This clearly calls for a re-centering of priorities. It’s unsurprising that through a bungled demo just days after laying us off, Google showed they’re indeed not leading the way in AI. However, the good news is that an incredible opportunity remains to be an accessibility leader in the treatment of laid off workers.”
Meta is launching its Verified program, adopting a feature that Twitter has long been known for.
Verified badges, seen as little blue checkmarks, give users a measure of confidence that a person is who they say they are. Twitter has had the feature for years, although it has undergone some changes under Elon Musk’s leadership.
Meta is now rolling out its own verification system, giving users the option to sign up on a waitlist to receive their Verified badge.
Get started with the verification process. Activate your Meta Verified subscription for $14.99 USD/month (iOS/Android) or $11.99 USD/month on the web (Facebook only). It is currently available in the United States, Australia and New Zealand for people 18 years or older and is not yet available in all places or for businesses.
If you’ve ever struggled to find the right words to describe your career on LinkedIn, the platform is deploying AI to help.
LinkedIn is owned by Microsoft, giving it access to the same ChatGPT-based tech its parent company is using to power the next generation of its Bing search engine. The networking platform is looking for innovative ways to deploy the tech, including allowing users to tap into AI to write better profiles.
The company made the announcement as part of a broader initiative to use AI in various classes:
To empower members with the latest AI skills, starting today we’re unlocking more than 100 LinkedIn Learning courses – and coming soon we’ll roll out twenty new generative AI courses. From the basics to advanced applications of AI, these courses will help members gain a competitive edge in today’s rapidly-changing market.
But that’s not all. We’re also starting to roll-out new AI-powered features, leveraging advanced OpenAI GPT models, as we continue to look for ways to create more value for our members and customers.
To help make the process easier and more effective, we’re testing a new tool for LinkedIn Premium subscribers that provides personalized writing suggestions to your About and headline sections.
We’re testing a new AI-powered job description tool that will make it faster and easier to write job descriptions.
The new features should be a boon for anyone who’s struggled with writer’s block about their current job or a job they’re trying to find candidates for.
Wells Fargo customers are reporting missing deposits, with the bank investigating and promising a fix.
According to ThinkAdvisor, Wells Fargo is aware of the issue and put the following statement on its website:
“If you’re experiencing an issue with our online services, we apologize for the inconvenience. We’re working quickly to resolve it.”
In addition, the bank provided the following statement to ThinkAdvisor:
“Wells Fargo is aware that some customers’ direct deposit transactions are not showing on their accounts, however funds in accounts are accurate and available. We are working quickly on a resolution and apologize for the inconvenience. Customers’ accounts continue to be secure.”
While certainly inconvenient, it’s at least good to know customer accounts have not been compromised and the issue appears to be a minor technical one.
Amazon is facing a class-action lawsuit in New York City over not disclosing its use of facial recognition in its Go stores.
NYC is the only major city in the US that requires businesses to disclose when they are using facial recognition, according to CNBC. Amazon’s Go stores achieve their cashier-less by using a plethora of cameras to link a person’s purchases with their Amazon account.
The lawsuit, filed on behalf of Alfredo Perez, says Amazon violated NYC’s law by not clearly disclosing the use of facial recognition until just recently, when the company finally put up cameras.
“To make this ‘Just Walk Out’ technology possible, the Amazon Go stores constantly collect and use customers’ biometric identifier information, including by scanning the palms of some customers to identify them and by applying computer vision, deep learning algorithms, and sensor fusion that measure the shape and size of each customer’s body to identify customers, track where they move in the stores, and determine what they have purchased,” the lawsuit says.
The Surveillance Technology Oversight Project is representing Perez.
“It means that even a global tech giant can’t ignore local privacy laws,” Albert Cahn, project director, told CNBC in a text message. “As we wait for long overdue federal privacy laws, it shows there is so much local governments can do to protect their residents.”
Google has discovered 0-day vulnerabilities in Samsung’s Exynos modems that impact the most recent Pixel and Samsung devices.
Samsung’s Exynos modem chipsets are used in a variety of devices, including Google’s Pixel 6 and 7 line, as well as a wide range of Samsung’s devices. Unfortunately, Google’s Project Zero has discovered 18 0-day vulnerabilities in the chipset, four which can be executed remotely with no user interaction.
Tests conducted by Project Zero confirm that those four vulnerabilities allow an attacker to remotely compromise a phone at the baseband level with no user interaction, and require only that the attacker know the victim’s phone number. With limited additional research and development, we believe that skilled attackers would be able to quickly create an operational exploit to compromise affected devices silently and remotely.
While still serious, the remaining 14 vulnerabilities are not as severe, since they require physical access to the device or a malicious network operator.
Google recommends turning off Wi-Fi calling and VoLTE on all impacted devices, including the list below:
Mobile devices from Samsung, including those in the S22, M33, M13, M12, A71, A53, A33, A21, A13, A12 and A04 series;
Mobile devices from Vivo, including those in the S16, S15, S6, X70, X60 and X30 series;
The Pixel 6 and Pixel 7 series of devices from Google;
any wearables that use the Exynos W920 chipset; and
any vehicles that use the Exynos Auto T5123 chipset.
Google says patches should be issued to address the vulnerabilities permanently, with the March 2023 update for Pixels already including at least one fix:
We expect that patch timelines will vary per manufacturer (for example, affected Pixel devices have already received a fix for CVE-2023-24033 in the March 2023 security update). In the meantime, users with affected devices can protect themselves from the baseband remote code execution vulnerabilities mentioned in this post by turning off Wi-Fi calling and Voice-over-LTE (VoLTE) in their device settings. As always, we encourage end users to update their devices as soon as possible, to ensure that they are running the latest builds that fix both disclosed and undisclosed security vulnerabilities.
To be clear, this is about as bad as it gets, in terms of mobile vulnerabilities, and users should take the necessary steps to protect themselves.
Emmett Shear has announced he is resigning as CEO of Twitch “to be fully there for” his first child.
Shear has served as the company’s CEO for 16 years, helping guide the company through its transition from Justin.tv to Twitch, and then through a deal that saw Twitch purchased by Amazon. Through it all, a love for what he does and the people he works with has kept him going:
I love the people I work with, I love that we create the opportunity for streamers to earn a living doing what they love, and I love the way we create a context for community for our streamers and viewers to come together where they can feel belonging and connection.
Shear’s first child was recently born, causing him to reflect on where he wants to go next:
With my first child just born, I’ve been reflecting on my future with Twitch. Twitch often feels to me like a child I’ve been raising as well. And while I will always want to be there if Twitch needs me, at 16 years old it feels to me Twitch is ready to move out of the house and venture alone. So it is with great poignancy that I share my decision to resign from Twitch as CEO. I want to be fully there for my son as he enters this world and I feel ready for this change to tackle new challenges. I will continue to work at Twitch in an advisory role.
Dan Clancy, the company’s current President, will take over as CEO. Given his close relationship with Shear, Clancy should be a steady hand that will help make for a smooth transition.
The UK has joined the US, EU, and Canada in banning TikTok from government devices, citing “a specific risk with government devices.”
TikTok is facing an existential crisis as governments and jurisdictions struggle with the security implications of the social media app. The company has come under fire for its ties to Beijing, especially since Chinese companies are required to aid the government with surveillance. There have also been repeated lapses in privacy, including TikTok’s parent admitting to surveilling journalists.
The UK has evidently determined the risks are too great, passing a ban involving the app and government devices, according to The Guardian. Oliver Dowden, the Cabinet Office minister in the Commons, said the ban was “with immediate effect.”
The decision is a marked change of tune for the UK government, which had previously said it would not follow other governments in banning the app.
YouTube TV is raising prices for its streaming service, citing rising content costs and an effort to “keep bringing you the best possible service.”
YTTV is one of the leading streaming TV services, offering a wide range of channels and features, along with unlimited DVR storage. The base plan currently costs $64.99 a month, but the company is raising that to $72.99.
The company informed users via email Thursday.
Your YouTube TV Base Plan membership price will change in your first billing cycle on or after April 18, 2023, and will be charged to your payment method on file going forward. To view your current plan, go to your Settings > Membership page for updated information. If you are currently on a Base Plan promotional price or a trial, that promotion is still honored and unchanged.
The company is lowering the price of various add-ons in an effort to soften the blow.
We will also be lowering the price of our 4K Plus add-on from $19.99/month to $9.99/month. Users new to 4K Plus are eligible for a $4.99/month for 12 months promotional offer. For existing users, if you are on a promotional price below $10/month, you’ll enjoy that price until the promotional period is over, at which point you’ll automatically receive the new price of $9.99/month. If you’re currently paying above $9.99/month, your new price will be $9.99/month.
Baidu has revealed its Ernie AI chatbot, and the result has been similar to Google’s AI reveal in that it has stumbled out of the gate.
Like Google, Baidu has been working overtime to catch up with Microsoft’s Bing AI. Baidu has finally “revealed” its Ernie chatbot, but the reveal did little to reassure investors that the company has a viable product.
According to Ars Technica, company founder Robin Li only showed a pre-recorded demo of the product at the big reveal. Li tried to emphasize the company’s progress, despite the lackluster showing:
“Sometimes when we use it we are pleasantly surprised, sometimes we may think there is an obvious error,” Li told the audience. “But one thing is for sure, it’s advancing very fast.
“Its extremely strong ability to comprehend and express language will allow any company to get closer to their customers,” Li added. “It’s an opportunity for every company and it will even have an impact on every single person.”
In the aftermath of the “demonstration,” Baidu’s stock tanked by 10% over fears that the company’s AI efforts may not be in as good a position as investors hoped. The sentiment is one shared by at least some Baidu employees.
“We can only explore by ourselves. Training ChatGPT took OpenAI more than a year, and it took them another year to tune GPT-4,” said one Baidu employee. “It means we’re two years behind.”
Microsoft has announced the appointment of a Lead Independent Director, Sandra E. (Sandi) Peterson, Operating Partner at Clayton, Dubilier & Rice.
Peterson replaces John W. Thompson, who served in the roles of Lead Independent Director or Board Chair since 2012.
“I’ve always valued John’s counsel and leadership and am grateful for his contributions as lead independent director and the strategic perspective he’ll continue to provide to Microsoft going forward,” said Satya Nadella, Chairman and CEO, Microsoft. “Since joining our Board, the guidance and insights Sandi has provided have been invaluable. I’m delighted that she will continue to bring a wealth of expertise and leadership to Microsoft as lead independent director.”
Microsoft’s Board also reelected Nadella to continue serving as chairman.
openSUSE Tumbleweed is a rolling release Linux distro, one that is something of a two-edged sword in terms of its features and usability.
In Part 1 of this review, we looked at openSUSE’s background, its openQA-provided stability, outstanding installer, choice of desktop environments, and its security. All of these are significant advantages of the distro. Unfortunately, security is also where openSUSE’s disadvantages begin to shine through.
Disclaimer: Some will say the following points are too critical of openSUSE since it’s a more technical distro and not necessarily aimed at desktop users. Nonetheless, openSUSE’s own website says it is: “The makers’ choice for sysadmins, developers and desktop users.” Therefore, my final rating will reflect the distro’s ability to meet the needs of all three of those categories.
Too Much Security?
Security is only a good thing if it’s not so restrictive that people begin disabling features for the sake of convenience, and this is where openSUSE’s disadvantages begin to shine through.
Of all the distros that I have tried to date (Fedora, Manjaro, openSUSE, KDE Neon, Pop!_OS, Kubuntu, and Zorin OS), openSUSE’s security policies are by far the most restrictive. Want to adjust your network settings? You’ll need to enter your password. Want to install a Flatpak app? You’ll need to enter your password. Change your timezone? Enter your password.
What’s more, the default firewall settings are so strict that printer discovery doesn’t work out of the box. To be clear, every single other distro I’ve tried automatically discovers my HP printer on my network and lets me print without installing any additional drivers.
In contrast, openSUSE cannot even discover the printer without changing the firewall profile from the default ‘Public’ to ‘Home,’ or adding the mDNS service to the ‘Public’ profile. Even when making sure mDNS is enabled, openSUSE still requires “hplip” software/driver package installed.
Is it possible to overcome these issues? Yes. But many people, especially less technical users, give up before figuring out how to jump through all these hoops. In fact, a quick look at openSUSE’s Reddit will reveal that two common solutions to printing on openSUSE are a) disable the firewall altogether or b) “don’t print on openSUSE.” Seriously…I have seen that advice multiple times…”don’t print on openSUSE.”
The issues with printing on openSUSE are irritating enough that Linux creator Linus Torvalds famously dumped openSUSE and switched to Fedora because printing was just too hard to bother with. Fans of the distro will point out that it has gotten better since that day…but it’s still not good enough for the average desktop user.
Yast
Yast stands for Yet Another Setup Tool and is one of the defining characteristics of openSUSE. The tool is a throwback to the earlier days of Linux when such setup and configuration tools were more common.
There’s no denying that Yast is a powerful tool, one that is available as both a graphical and command-line package. For system admins, Yast provides a powerful way to administer openSUSE instances. There is almost nothing you can configure via the terminal that can’t be configured via Yast’s GUI, and it’s a tool I miss on other distros.
At the same time, however, like openSUSE’s other hallmark features, Yast is something of a two-edged sword. While it’s undeniably useful — and this is purely subjective — I’m not a fan of how it takes over functions normally handled by a distro’s built-in tools. For example, I run the KDE Plasma desktop, which has excellent built-in tools for printing and firewall management. Yast takes these tasks over, however. Gnome has similarly useful tools as part of the system settings.
As I said, I realize this is very subjective. Some users prefer to have one tool to manage such tasks, regardless of the desktop environment they use. Many users prefer to have one desktop-agnostic tool that never changes. I am not one of those users. I would prefer to use Plasma’s tools when they’re available and fall back to Yast when they’re not.
Btrfs and Snapper
One of openSUSE’s greatest features is its use of the btrfs filesystem and built-in Snapper support. Btrfs is a relatively new filesystem that provides automated system snapshots. This gives users the option to rollback to a previous snapshot from the boot menu in the event something goes wrong.
Tinkering with your system and mess something up? Not a problem, just rollback and it never happened. The same goes for an update that borks something. Just rollback and wait for the issue to be addressed. This is truly a must-have setup for a rolling release distro.
There are two downsides to keep in mind with btrfs (there’s that two-edged sword again):
Btrfs is one of the slower filesystems in use by Linux distros. The excellent DJ Ware, on YouTube, has done extensive benchmarks showing how much slower the filesystem is. While I’ve not done such extensive benchmarks myself, I do have an everyday data point.
When setting up the digiKam photo organizing software for the first time, the app scans your Pictures folder. On any distro using the older ext4 filesystem, it takes digikam anywhere from 4:57 to 5:17 to scan my 49GB of photos. In contrast, digiKam on openSUSE takes more than 7:50 to complete. This result, which I have been able to consistently reproduce, jives with DJ Ware’s benchmarks.
The other potential downside is in regard to data integrity. Given that it’s still a young filesystem, there are still an uncomfortable number of reports about btrfs filesystems becoming hopelessly corrupted. Without a doubt, openSUSE has the most mature implementation of btrfs, but your mileage may vary.
Patterns and Recommendations
One of the things that makes openSUSE so successful at providing stability with a rolling release is its use of Patterns and recommendations.
Patterns are collections of software that are related and share dependencies. For example, there’s a KDE Plasma Pattern, KDE Apps Pattern, Office Suite Pattern, Mobile Pattern, and more.
The power of patterns is that it allows openSUSE developers to update an entire collection of software rather than try to determine what is or is not installed on a machine. Similarly, openSUSE defaults to installing any and all recommended dependencies when installing an application, unlike almost every other distro, in the interest of making sure no app is installed with any missing features.
On paper, both of these seem like good ideas, and, to be clear, they are…to a point. Both of these features contribute greatly to openSUSE Tumbleweed being one of the most stable rolling-release distros.
Unfortunately, Patterns and recommendations also result in some unfortunate side effects. For example, if you delete an application that is included in one of the default Patterns, it will be reinstalled on the next update. You will need to manually block the package, or the entire Pattern, in order to prevent its reinstallation.
Random Papercuts
Slack Issues
In addition to the major things highlighted above, openSUSE running KDE has a bug that makes it almost impossible to add the workspaces I’m subscribed to. I can easily add three of them with no problem, but the fourth one always fails.
The only way I can get it added to the Slack client is to try importing that workspace along with three or four defunct workspaces. After trying this one or three dozen times, the troublesome workspace will finally get imported. From what I’ve been able to tell via research, the workspace string that gets passed from browser to Slack clients gets mangled.
At one point, I thought this was a KDE Plasma bug since it doesn’t happen on Gnome or Xfce. However, this only happens on openSUSE. It doesn’t happen on Manjaro KDE, Kubuntu, or KDE Neon. I have no idea what the problem is but, at least in my experience, it is a uniquely openSUSE issue.
Network Login
On multiple installs of openSUSE, I’ve had issues where I was constantly prompted to enter my root password and network password in order to stay connected. Wake the computer from sleep…enter my passwords. Needless to say, this got old quick.
Conclusion
openSUSE Tumbleweed is one of the most well-engineered distros on the market and offers a tremendous amount of features and abilities. Unfortunately, some of those features are a two-edged sword that cause as many problems as they solve.
openSUSE Tumbleweed is a distro I love to play with and would love to use as my daily driver. Unfortunately, the inconveniences quickly wears on my nerves in daily use, and I end up moving on.
That being said, for the right person, openSUSE is hands-down the best distro available.
Rating
For System Admins: 5 out of 5 stars
The combination of Yast and its enterprise connections makes openSUSE quite possibly the best distro for system admins.
For Developers: 4 out of 5 stars
On the one hand, having the latest and greatest packages can be a big help to developers. On the other hand, the papercuts and irritations may take unnecessary time away from development.
For Desktop Users: 3 out of 5 stars
Before writing about tech, I was a software developer for over a decade. I’ve created software for major universities, companies, and the commercial market. In spite of that high-tech background, openSUSE was just too irritating and difficult for me to use on a daily basis, and I would never recommend it to most everyday users. It would have to be a special breed of desktop user, one that wants to spend as much time managing their computer as using it before I could recommend it to them.
The Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) has bad news for the industry, saying that nearly one-third of organizations struggle with data loss prevention (DLP) systems.
The CSA is an organization dedicated to helping secure cloud computing. A survey the organization conducted with Netskope found that DLP solutions are a critical component used in cloud security.
Unfortunately, that’s where the good news ends. While companies are relying on DLP systems, nearly a third struggle to use them effectively.
Among the top challenges cited by organizations are management difficulties (29%), too many false positives (19%), the need for manual version upgrades (18%), and deployment complexity (15%).
“DLP solutions are an integral part of organizations’ data security strategy, but leaders are still struggling with this strategy and the implementation of solutions, especially for how complicated legacy and on-prem based solutions are to manage and maintain,” said Naveen Palavalli, Vice President of Products, Netskope. “These findings highlight the need for a comprehensive and easy-to-use cloud delivered data protection solution that integrates into their existing security controls and is a key tenant of their Zero Trust security strategy.”
Cloud security is increasingly in the spotlight as more and more organizations experience data breaches at a time when the cloud is becoming integral to more companies and industries.
The Biden administration has signaled it is preparing to regulate cloud security in an effort to better protect organizations. If the CSA’s findings are any indication, it looks like the industry could use the help.
Samsung is planning to invest $230 billion to build the world’s biggest semiconductor manufacturing “mega cluster.”
As semiconductors become more important across industries, the chip supply chain is increasingly becoming an area of national security concern for countries around the world. According to ABC News, Samsung’s plan is part of a South Korean national project to help establish the country as the world’s leading semiconductor manufacturing site.
The plan includes Samsung building the world’s single biggest chip-building base, and will take some 20 years to fully realize. Once the “mega cluster” is complete, in 2042, it will build a wide range of high-end chips, including both computer memory and logic chips.
“(South Korea) has world-class manufacturing capabilities and technologies in various high-tech industries such as semiconductors, secondary batteries, and displays, but (government) support and regulatory conditions have been insufficient,” the Trade Ministry said in a statement.
Samsung is already one of the world’s leading chipmakers. This expansion is sure to help it strengthen its position.
The US Marines are launching the all-new Marine Corps Software Factory (MCSWF) to develop software for the Corps’ use.
Software development is at the heart of countless industries, and the Marine Corps sees potential benefit for the battlefield as well. The program will begin as a three-year pilot program to investigate potential applications.
MCSWF is a three-year pilot to demonstrate a scalable, Marine-led software development capability. The three-year pilot will evaluate the demand from the fleet to better understand overall requirements.
In particular, the Corps wants to ensure future marines have the ability to operate and utilize software-based solutions even in environments where they may be cut off from connectivity and access to traditional support.
“Our Marines have an amazing capacity for understanding complex technologies. We must empower our Marines to use that technological know-how to create a more lethal force,” stated Gen. David H. Berger, 38th Commandant of the Marine Corps. “The Marine Corps is fielding more complex systems and platforms right now, and we must invest in our Marines’ and Civilian Marines’ capacity to advance in parallel.”
“The Marine Corps Software Factory is about outcomes, creating advantage for Marines at the tactical edge, today”, stated Marine Corps’ Chief Information Officer, Lt. Gen. Matthew Glavy, Deputy Commandant for Information (DC I). “The MCSWF will provide viable capabilities to enhance mission readiness through the power of information.”
Dish Network customers are still in limbo, with few answers weeks after the company was crippled by ransomware.
Dish began experiencing major issues with its website, internal systems, and customer portal going offline in late February. Roughly a week later, the company admitted to suffering a massive ransomware attack, one that crippled operations and resulted in the theft of customer data.
According to TechCrunch, Dish customers still have no idea what is going on, with many of them unable to access customer support, pay their bills, or get any kind of useful information.
In fact, a number of customers have had their service disconnected because they have been unable to log into the customer portal to pay their bills. Others are already experiencing voice and email phishing attempts as hackers try to exploit the lack of information from Dish to take advantage of customers looking for answers.
Company spokesperson Edward Wietecha told TechCrunch that “customers are having trouble reaching our service desks, accessing their accounts, and making payments.” When asked if the company was disconnecting users, Wietecha added that “customers who had their service temporarily suspended for nonpayment received additional time until our payment systems were restored.”
In addition to the trouble Dish’s own customers are having, there is potential for the problem to be much worse and extend beyond Dish’s roughly 10 million customers. A former Dish retailer told TechCrunch that the company retains a veritable treasure trove of customer data from anyone who has ever signed up for Dish service, including those who never became customers because they didn’t pass the credit check. The information includes “customer names, dates of birth, email addresses, telephone numbers, Social Security numbers, and credit card information.” What’s more, it appears that Dish’s policy is to retain the information indefinitely.
Overall, Dish is providing a case study of how not to handle a ransomware attack for any company that wants to come out the other side still having customers.
YouTube TV is testing out four-way multiview in early access, finally bringing one of fubuTV’s best features to the streaming service.
Multiview allows a viewer to watch multiple streams simultaneously, splitting the screen between two or more events. fuboTV has had the feature for years, but YouTube TV is finally rolling it out to its users. While multiview is only available in early access, the company says all subscribers will be able to use it in the next few months.
During early access, some members will begin to see an option to watch up to four pre-selected, different streams at once in their “Top Picks for You” section. After selecting multiview, viewers will be able to switch audio and captions between streams, and jump in and out of a fullscreen view of a game. Multiview joins our suite of features for sports fans and we’re looking forward to continuing to improve the experience and introducing it to all YouTube TV subscribers over the next several months.
Best of all, the company is deploying the service in a way that all users, regardless of their home streaming equipment, will be able to use.
“We moved the processing requirements to happen on YouTube’s servers,” said German Cheung, Engineering lead, YouTube TV. “This allows all subscribers to use the feature, regardless of their home equipment, because when it’s streamed to them, their device sees only one live feed, instead of two or four. ”
Multiview is an awesome feature, especially for sports fans that don’t want to miss a moment of the action. By adding the feature to its service, YouTube TV is continuing to establish itself as the best all-around live TV streaming service.
T-Mobile has announced a deal to acquire Ka’ena Corporation, the parent company of Mint Mobile and Ultra Mobile.
Mint Mobile is the successful budget carrier owned by Ryan Reynolds. Reynolds serves as the company’s pitchman, bringing his unique blend of humor to the role. That humor was on full display in the announcement revealing the deal:
“Mint Mobile is the best deal in wireless and today’s news only enhances our ability to deliver for our customers. We are so happy T-Mobile beat out an aggressive last-minute bid from my mom Tammy Reynolds as we believe the excellence of their 5G network will provide a better strategic fit than my mom’s slightly-above-average mahjong skills. I am so proud of the entire Mint team and so excited for what’s to come,” said Ryan Reynolds.
“Mint has built an incredibly successful digital direct-to-consumer business that continues to deliver for customers on the Un-carrier’s leading 5G network and now we are excited to use our scale and owners’ economics to help supercharge it – and Ultra Mobile – into the future,” said Mike Sievert, CEO of T-Mobile. “Over the long-term, we’ll also benefit from applying the marketing formula Mint has become famous for across more parts of T-Mobile. We think customers are really going to win with a more competitive and expansive Mint and Ultra.”
“Our brands have thrived on the T-Mobile network, and we are thrilled that this agreement will take them even further, bringing the many benefits of 5G to even more Americans,” said David Glickman, founder and CEO of Mint, Ultra and Plum. “This transaction validates our meteoric success and will unite two proven industry innovators committed to doing things differently in the wireless industry.”
Following the deal’s close, David Glickman and Rizwan Kassim will continue to manage the brand, which will largely remain independent. Reynolds will continue in his creative role, likely serving as the brand’s pitchman for years to come.
The deal is worth up to $1.35 billion, a combination of 39% cash and 61% stock, and is expected to close later in 2023.
Google’s recent changes to the Pixel line of phones, beginning with the Pixel 6, have helped the company make major headway in the smartphone market. Foldable phones are the next big thing in smartphone design, with Samsung being the current leader in the space.
If Google is able to successfully break into the foldable market, the company’s upward momentum could be just beginning.
TikTok is considering drastic action in an effort to avoid a US ban, including the possibility of splitting from parent ByteDance.
TikTok is increasingly under fire over privacy and security concerns. The company is owned by China-based ByteDance, raising concerns over national security, given China’s long history of surveillance and state-backed hacking.
Facing a possible US ban, as well as increased restrictions in Canada and the EU, TikTok is considering what would once have been unthinkable, according to Bloomberg. According to the outlet’s sources, the measure is considered a last-ditch option, only to be used if existing efforts to appease national security officials fail. Even then, such a measure would have to be approved by the Chinese government, something that likely has a low chance of happening.
In the meantime, TikTok is emphasizing the measures it is already taking to comply with US demands:
“Neither a ban of TikTok nor a divestiture of TikTok from ByteDance does anything to address national security concerns about data transfers,” said Brooke Oberwetter, a spokesperson for TikTok. “Under Project Texas, TikTok data for our US users would be held to a significantly higher security standard than any comparable American company.”
